Mech Suit Progess: More Fettling

I added a roll bar to protect the head from the crane arm, and changed the weapon because I could.

Just when I thought I was getting nearer to slapping some paint on these, I had an idea. It's all Wouter's fault too! Only kidding, Wouter, you got me thinking.

 

You can see the magnets nestled inside the torso, and the extra stowage I added to the back of the mech.

I have a bunch of old RAFM Gears, but a lot of them are missing parts, like heads or backpacks. However, this means I have a bunch of spare arms to play with.

I had to rework the arm, as my first attempt to sculpting didn't work out.

So the thought occurred to me that if I magnetized the shoulder joints I could swap arms on the models, and change out the weapon loadouts to suit my fancy. How hard could it be?

Jolly hockey sticks, not so much hard, just more time consuming than I imagined.

You can see clear through the torso that I've drilled to mount the magnets, and close-ups of the sculpting on the knee joints.

So that's what I've been doing, and it's taking a bit longer than I anticipated to convert all the models, so yet another work in progress report. But soon I shall start painting them.

Soon I say, my voice lost in time and space.

Guest on SciFi Shenanigans

  

This is late news because I became distracted by world events. I remembered to put it up on Facebook, but forgot to do so here. I can only blame myself for not posting this news here sooner. Doh!

I was recently invited to be a guest on the SciFi Shenanigans podcast.

So now you can hear me speak in Episode 155 – MilSciFi Panel 3 – British Edition, hosted by JR Handley with my fellow Mil-SF authors Tim C Taylor, and Ralph Kern.

In other news, after a long hiatus I've started writing, refreshed after a long, much needed break to sort out my shit.
  

Takara 1/48th Burglary Dog

I scooped this Takara 1/48th Scale Burglary Dog ATM-09-DD off eBay this week. I've wanted one of these toys for a long while, but all the ones I'd seen for sale have been offered at a breath taking price.

So this particular version often goes for staggering sums of money, but I was very lucky, and acquired this one at a bargain price. Colour me very pleased.

As you can see, some assembly required, but this is simple enough: on par with IKEA furniture. Still it came as a bit of a shock, as I was expecting an assembled toy to play with.

Dream Pod 9 drew inspiration from the anime Armored Trooper VOTOMS show. A rough comparison reveals this model is about twice the height of the RAFM Heavy Gear models I've been converting.

When I've assembled this model, I'll take a picture with my RAFM conversions, so everyone can a better idea of how big these are. If they weren't so damn expensive they would make good mecha for 28mm wargames.

Hope to catch you all on the bounce.

  

WIP: Carrying On Conversions

It has taken me a lot longer to complete the conversions than I would've imagined. I spent all of Saturday working on adding stowage to just three mech suit miniatures.

Sunday I had two writing assignments to finish, so today I spent some time fiddling with getting the next two miniatures further forward to being complete.

This time I knew it was going to take a bit of time to fabricate the parts I wanted to revise my command combat armor suit.

After gluing two pieces of brass together I stated filing them to shape, as can be seen in the picture at the top of the post.

Then I split then apart (easily done with superglued joints. As you can also see I've changed the hand on the arm so it's now pointing a finger.

Finally, I mounted the antennae on the shoulder, replicating the look of the VOTOMS Bloodsucker Dog here.

No wonder people like ready assembled miniatures.

In other modeling news, I got an order from GZG for more stowage (jerry cans, boxes etc.) and a bunch of Jon's robot figures.

In other secret news, now not so much of a secret, I have four more RAFM Heavy Gears in transit for the States with a big bag of parts, and a Matchbox HEMMT. Thanks to Jeff Racel for enabling this acquisition.

As always, stay safe, stay well, and catch you all on the bounce.

Weapons Panopoly

  

I can't tell you how insanely happy it makes me to have some old RAFM Heavy Gear weapon packs arrive. I just had to array my collection in front of my ongoing RAFM conversions for everyone to see. Look at my weapon stash!

That's all. Stay safe, stay well, catch you all on the bounce.

Lock Down Update

I've been distracted by stuff. The lock-down for a start. I mean it's hard not to be affected by changes that are affecting the whole world.

Now the missile pod is drilled out.

To be more specific, posting has been delayed, not unexpected, has meant I've been waiting for parts to carry on model making. Yeah, that's that a weak sauce excuse, but distractions. So here's just some pictures showing work completed (mostly).

Shocking.

So to all my friends, keep safe and stay well.

Combat Armour Build: Dog and Ape WIP 2

Another week, this time progress was slowed down again due to the amount of fiddling required to clean up the castings: in this case to make things square that looked square, but weren't square–in this case the butt plate of the mech above.

The problem only came to light when I found that the torso with the back pack attached didn't look centered. It was then that I discovered the X-indentation marking the center of the butt plate wasn't.

Who would have thought that a tiny amount of asymmetry could be so troubling?

However, I'm pretty pleased with the repose on the model above has turned out.

Below, you can see I managed to break the bazooka casting. Fortunately, this is from the current 1/144th scale range, so I have spares in case anything worse happens.

For those who might ask why use the smaller bazooka? Have you seen the size of the originals: they're ginormous – totally over-the-top humongous weapons.

So, I only managed to get this far with assembling these two mechs before I had to call it a day, as supper was being served.

Combat Armour Build: Dog and Ape WIP 1

Okay, here are my next two builds.

The model on the left is a Marine CASE-2X Dog, which is going to have a missile pack, rifle and sustained fire machine gun. The casting were pretty skanky, so I ended cutting the legs apart so I could clean out the misshapen excess lead.

The model on the right is an Army CAS-3-Mod-1 Ape, which is is going to have a missile pack, a M75A 40mm recoilless autocannon, and a M134 minigun. Basically another version of Espera's ride from Strike Dog

You can see what I did in the pictures below.

I don't know if the RAFM Jager had alternative leg castings; either way the space between the knee and thigh were just blobs of lead. So I chopped the legs off.

Yes, I know no fear...

Once everything was cut and cleaned up, I drilled and put in pins to hold all the parts together when glued. I bent up some wire staples to provide a robust point to fix the model to its base.

Having cut the joints I was able to bend the wire that pinned the parts together and do quite a nice repose of the legs.

And as you can see I've also split the butt plate off from the backpack casting.

A lot of fiddling around to get these castings licked into shape, hence still a work in progress. More next week. Stay safe, catch you all on the bounce.

Keith & Pearson's CA Suits: Build (Mostly) Finished

Took me longer than I expected to finish both this mech. I had to fabricate a replacement claw as that part was missing from my model, so I used a part from a BattleTech mech.

I replaced the previous large grenade launcher from the current Dream Pod 9 range with an original large grenade launcher from RAFM, as Pearson's supposed to mix it up more than Keith.

I'm still vacillating over how to add a mortar to Pearson's suit or not?

Here's Keith's fully finished suit.

You can see I've rounded off the the previously exposed magnets that allow the arms to pivot. And you can see the small machine gun mounted on the left arm, and compare the size of the grenade launcher to the one on Pearson's suit.

I also added some details to the back. Spare wheels and camo netting. So that's it for another week. You all stay safe during the crisis, catch you on the bounce.

* Mostly, as in before I revised the stowage and magnetized the joints.

WIP 3: Pearson's CA Suit

Here's Pearson's CAS-1-Mod-3EV ride, almost finished, but not quite done. It took quite a lot of fettling and filing to make the crane swing arm, which still needs a bit more work as I have to fabricate a claw.

Once that's done, then I have to figure out how I want to attach the parts for a mortar to this mech. Not sure whether to have the mortar permanently mounted to the back, or have it as a replacement for the crane arm?

Let me know if you have any other ideas in the comments.

Stay safe, have fun.